
7)3^ 



E 525 
.038 

copvi ADDRESS 



TO THB 



SOLDIEES OF OHIO, 



BY THB 



DEMOCRATIC STATE CENTRAL COMMITTEE. 



THE UNION AND THE CONSTITUTION. 



« <»» » > 



COLUMBUS: 

DEMOCRATIC STATE CENTRAL COMMITTEE B0OM3> 
1S63. 



/- '• 



.:2?3 



KOTE TO THE DEMOCRACY OF OHIO. 

It is of great importance that many tbousand copies of this AddreFS 6houl<l 
be sent to our Boldiers in the army as early as possible. To accomplish this 
object the immediate co-operation of every Democrat in the State is solicited. 
All have friends in the army, and by a prompt and combined effort every sol- 
dier from Ohio can be reached, within the four weeks that remain. 

The following extract from a letter received from General Rosecrans, under 
date of " Headquarters Department of the Cumberland, Winchester, Tenn., Aug. 
15, 186.3," in answer to the Committee, is a sufficient assurance that there will be 
no interference with the transmission of the Address. Gen. R. says : 

'' As to newspapers, pamphlets and other publications, none have been or will 
be excluded on the ground of party politics. But I do not belong to that sen- 
timental class who weakly and timidly allow brawling license to stab true lib- 
erty. Hence, when any publication appears among us so licentious, lying or 
traitorous as to endanger the morality or be likely to impair the vigor of the 
army, I feel bound by reason, justice, and duty to my country, to use my au- 
thority to prevent its circulation."' 

Orders for this pamphlet will be promply filled by the Committee, or by J 
Walter & Co., of this city. 

In behalf of the Committee. 

JOHN G. THOMPSON, Chairman. 
Coiumbus, 0., Sept. 15, 1863. 



DEMOCRATIC UNION TICKET. 



LIBERTY AND UNION. 



For Governor, 
CLEMENT L. VALLANDIGHAM. 

For Lieutenant-Governor, 
GEOllGE E. PUGH. 

For Auditor of State, 
WILLIAM HUBBARD. 

For Treasurer of State, 

HORACE S. KNAPP. 

For Judge of Supremo Court, 

PHILADJ]LPII VAN TRUMP. 

For Member of Board of Public Works, 
JOHN H. HEATON. 



ADDEESS 



Soldiers of Ohio : — Wc aro approaching an election of unusnal 
interest and importance. On the second Tuesday of October next the 
people of our State must, by their votes, determine the character of our 
State government for the ensuing two years. Though absent from your 
homes, as soldiers in the service of your country, you are still, by the 
laws of your State, citizens. By virtue of an act passed on the 13th 
of April last, you have the right to add your votes to those of your 
fellow-citizens at home, and thus aid in forming the character of your 
State government. That act, entitled * 'An act to enable qualified voters 
of this State, in the military service of this Slate, or of the United 
States, to exercise the right of suffrage," authorizes those of you 
who, if at home, would be qualified voters in your respective townships 
and wards, to exercise the right of suffrage, on the days appointed for 
holding County, State, Congressional or Presidential elections. While 
thus absent, in the service of your country, this right is, by the provi- 
sions of that act, secured to you as fully and absolutely as if you were 
on those days present at your usual places of election. 

The right thus guaranteed by a law of your State, while an inesti- 
mable privilege to you, devolves also upon you a great and solemn 
responsibility. To exercise the right of franchise wisely, justly, and 
independently, is, for most men, a delicate and difficult task, under 
ordinary circumstances. To the soldier in the service of his country, 
far from home, the difficulty is greatly increased. He is in a great 
measure deprived of the counsels of his former friends. He is without 
the advantage of that free and full interchange of sentiment, to which 
he has been accustomed. He hears none of the public discussions, 
which to those at home form so important a part of the means of com- 
ing to a correct conclusion in regard to the respective merits of the 
principles and the persons between whom a choice must be made. 

But your case is peculiar. You entered the military service to aid 
in subduing a rebellion, not to find an employment for life, whereby 
you would separate youi'selves from the civil associations and interests 
of your former homes. Many of you left families, all of you relatives, 
also circles of friends. And the first wish of those from whom you 
parted was, that your services might aid in bringing this unhappy and 
most disastrous war to a just, honorable and speedy termination ; their 
second wish that you might soon return to enjoy with them the blesH- 
ings of the peace thus secured. And in order that you might con- 
tinue to feel as deep an interest as ever in the civil affairs and prospects 
of your State, they determined to confer upon you through the Icgiela' 



4 

tive authority, the right to co-operate with them in the selection of 
civil officers, both for the State and general governments. 

This was a Democratic movement. On the 28th of Feb., 1862, a 
bill ''to authorize volunteers from the State, in actual service at the 
time of a general election, to vote wherever they may Je," was intro- 
duced into the House of Kepresentatlves by Mr. Dretel, a Democratic 
member, and a similar bill by Mr. Sayler on the 4th of JIarch, which 
was referred to a Special Committee — Messrs. Dresel, Converse and 
Sayler — all leading Democratic members. On the 9th of April ensu- 
ing, the Committee reported in favor of the bill. But its passage was 
not at that time favored by the Republican side of the House. Hence 
it was laid on the table and not taken up again during that session. 
But in view of the general popularity of the measure, Mr. Gunckel, 
Republican, introduced a bill to the same effect into the Senate, which 
passed that body, but on coming to the House, that also met a similar 
fate, and therefore failed to pass. 

The Democratic State Convention, held in Columbus, July 4th, 
18G2, condemned the rejection of the bill, in the following strong 
terms : / 

^^ Resolved, That the refusal of the General Assembly to permit our gal- 
lant soldiers in the field the right to vote, was a great and unjustifiable 
■wrong to them, that ought not to have been committed." 

In the fall of 1862 the Democrats carried the election, which was 
for members of Congress and certain State officers, but not for the 
General Assembly. In that the Republicans continued to have a ma- 
jority, but the current of popular sentiment was setting strongly in the 
direction of Democratic measures. The rejection of the bill giving the 
soldiers the right to vote was not well received by the people. This 
the Republican members saw, and at once became the professed friends 
of the measure, and the bill being still sustained by the Democratic 
members, passed near the close of the last session by a nearly unani- 
mous vote. 

This, soldiers of Ohio, is a brief history of the motives and means 
which led to the enactment of the law under which you now have the 
ri»ht to aid in selecting the men to fill the executive and legislative offi- 
ces of our State government. To the Democratic party in whose be- 
half we now address you, are you mainly Indebted for this privilege. 

More than half of you when you left your homes were Democrats, 
and if you were now here with us would undoubtedly vote as we do, 
and would see the best and most convincing reasons for doing so. You 
would then know that the Republican papers that have been distributed 
among you since the war begun, have constantly and persistently mis- 
represented the motives and purposes of the Democratic party. You 
would then know that that party is, as it ever has been, tlio consistent 
friend of the Constitution and the Union, and has never harbored a 
thought inimical to either, or to their gallant defenders. The ground 
on which the party has ever stood and yet stands, is truly declared in 



& 

the first resolution of its Platform adopted at its State Convention of 
July 4, 18G2, as follows: 

^'Resolved, Thatwc arc, as wc have ever been, the devoted friends of 
the Constitution and the Union, and we have no sympathy witb tnc ene- 
mies of cither." 

And why should wo have any such sympathy ? Every motive that 
can actuate the human heart leads us to be true to our country, and we 
have not a sinqle motive to induce us to be false to it. And you will, 
we feel sure, be slow to believe that that great old Democratic party, 
that has ever stood by the Union, and to which you have been justly 
proud to belong, has ceased to be the true party of the country, lou 
will not believe that the fathers, brothers and friends whom you have 
loft at home, have become sympathizers with treason, upon the malig- 
nant assertions of their political opponents. 

Under these circumstances we have a right to believe you will be 
true to your own deeply cherished convictions; which must be that the 
old Democratic party with which you have heretofore acted, cannot be 
far out of the way. You will surely give much weight to the most 
reasonable presumption, that if you could be here with us, and bo 
fully informed in regard to all the issues involved in the approaching 
election, the evidence would be clear and overwhelming to you, as it is 
to us, that we are sustaining the right measures and the right men. 

Our measures have entered into and formed the history of the gov- 
ernment, and have constituted the basis on which it has been happily 
and successfully administered during at least three-fourths the entire 
period of its existence That the people of each State and section 
ou.'ht to attend to their own affairs and rigidly abstain from every 
interference with the rights guaranteed or conceded to other sections by 
the federal Constitution, has always been a favorite principle with us. 
The Democracy of Ohio were true to the facts of history when at their 
State Convention, Aug. 7th, 1861, they declared as the first of their 
platform resolutions : 

" Resolved, That the civil war by which our country is at present dis- ^ 
traded, is the natural offspring of misguided sectionalism, engendereil 
by fanatical agitators North as well as South; and that the Democratic 
party having equally opposed the extremists of both section: and liav- 
ino- at all times zealously contended for the administration of the Oeneral 
Government within its constitutional limits, that party is in no way re- 
sponsible for calamities that have resulted from a departure from its doc- 
trines, and a disregard of its warning and advice.' 

In the same platform we resolved : 

'• That the volunteer soldiers who, at the call of their country, promptly 
went forth to do battle in defense of its Constitution and Laws, and ^»ho, 
in many oases, have been compelled to fight under inexperienced officers, 
are entitled to our hearty thanks for the gallant manner in which they 
have discharged their duties." 

Again, in the platform adopted at our State Convention, July 4th, 
18G2, we declared that 

"The history of the Democracy is a record of unceasing and unvaried 



/ 



6 

deTOtion to the union of the States; ever fulfilling the injunction of the 
Father of our country, to 'cherish a cordial, habitual and immovable at- 
tachment to it; accustoming themselves to think and speak of it as of the 
palladium of their political safety and pi'osperity, watching for its preser- 
vation with jealous anxiety; discountenancing whatever might suggest 
even a suspicion that it could, in any event, be abandoned; and indig- 
nantly frowning upon the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any 
portion of our country from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which 
link together the various parts.' " 

. At that time we also resolved, 

" That the Abolition party, by their denunciation of the President, when 
ever he has manifested a conservative spirit; by their atrocious defamation 
of our Generals who were exposing their lives for their country, and who 
needed and merited its hearty support; by their acts and declarations 
tending to promote insubordination in our armies, and a want of confidence 
in their commanders; and by their persistent representations of all con- 
servative men in the loyal States, as sympathizers with the rebels, have 
given immense aid and comfort to the rebellion, and encouraged them to 
hope for ultimate success." 

We recorded our most solemn and unqualified condemnation of the 
emancipation policy, and in doing so, gave the following among many 
other reasons : 

" Because such an emancipation would throw upon the border free 
States, and especially upon Ohio, an immense number of negroes to com- 
pete with and underwork the Avhite laborers of the State, and to constitute 
in various waj'S, an almost, or quite, unbearable nuisance, if suil'ered to 
remain among us. And we would deem it moat unjust to our gallant 
soldiers to see them compelled to free the negroes of the South, and thereby 
fill Ohio with a degraded population, to compete with these same soldiers 
upon their return to the peaceful avocations of life." 

In the same Convention, we said : 

"That while we will, as heretofore, discourage all mere factious opposi- 
tion to the Administration, and will continue to give our earnest support 
to all proper measures to put down the rebellion, and will make all the 
allowancea that the necessities of the case require of good citizens, we 
protest against all violations of the Constitution." 

And at our State Convention, on the llth of June last, wo declare 
in our platform : 

"That the soldiers composing our armies merit the warmest thanks of 
tlie nation. Their country called and nobly did they respond. Living, they 
shall know a nation's gratitude; wounded, a nation's care; and dying, 
they shall live in our memories, and monuments shall be raised to teach 
posterity to honor the patriots and heroes who ofFercd their lives at their 
country's altar. Their widows and orphans shall be adopted by the nation, 
to be watched over and cared for as objects truly worthy a nation's guar- 
dianship." 

The platforms and resolutions in which the above and many similar 
sentiments are expressed, have been printed in all the Democratic 
papers of Ohio. Hence you know what position we have occupied in 
relation to the war, and to all other questions in which the welfare of 



our country is concerneil. We quote the above passages to brinp; to 
your memory, and place immediately before you, a few of the leadiog 
principles and purposes of the true and genuine Democracy of Ohio, 
the firm and unwavering friends of the Constitution and the Union. 

OUR CANDIDATE FOR GOVERNOR. 

To lay fully before you the claims of the lion, C. L. Vallandigham 
to your suffrages and ours, and to give you a full explanation of tbt^ 
reasons that have determined us and the great mass of the people of 
your State to elevate him to the oifico of Governor, would require 
more space than this brief Address will permit us to use, in that way. 
"We regret that this is so, as you are thus deprived of your just right 
to be fully informed in regard to every fact and every principle in- 
volved in the important issue now pending. 

Against the other candidates on the Democratic State ticket, no 
serious objections have been urged by the llepublican party. Their 
fitness for the offices to which they have been nominated, on all save 
political grounds, is generally conceded. But against Mr. Vallandig- 
bam you have beard many grave charges, among which are, that he is 
a " disunionist,'' "an enetny of the soldiers," " a convicted traitor." 
If any of these or of the many other equally damaging charges were 
true, that fact would constitute the best of reasons why you should not 
give him your vote?, while we, for placing him in nomination for the 
office of Governor of our State, would be justly disgraced in the esti- 
mation of all honorable men. 

Our answer to those charges is a bold, positive, unequivocal denial 
of their truth. Mr. Vallandigiiam is not a disunionist, an enemy of 
the soldiers, nor a convicted traitor. On the contrary, he is now and 
has been at all times, through the whole period of his political career, 
in every speech, and every act of his life, a firm, able, and consistent 
friend and defender of the Union. To repeat every speech, and mention 
every act by which he has labored to secure the constitutional integrity 
and permanency of the Union, and protect it from the disastrous con- 
sequences of sectional strife, would require a large volume. There is 
no statesman in this country, nor has there ever been any, whose labors 
in that direction have been more constant and unremitting. 

Sentiments tending to encourage disunion were introduced and advo- 
cated in the Ohio House of Representatives, by certain abolition leaders, 
as early as 18^. Mr. Vallandioiiam, then a member of the House, 
was among the first to rebuke and denounce those sentiments. In u 
speech on the 22d of January of that year, he said : 

"That whenever any question might arise, involving the Union in the 
alternative, he would go with his might on that side — on the side of thk 
l-'xio.v, 'xow AND FOREVER, o.NEAND INSEPARABLE.' AVould any gentle- 
man relinquish the Union rather than tolerate the existence of slavery iu 
the South ?" 

Again, on the 2d of September, 1847, Mr. V., on assuming the 
editorial charge of the Dayton Empire, said : 

" We will protect and defend, according to our opportunitica and abili- 



ties, THE Union of these States, as in very deed the 'Palladium of our 
political prosperity,' ' the only rock of our safety,' less sacred only than 
Liberty herself; and we will pander to the sectional prejudices, or the fanati- 
cism, or wounded pride, or disappointed ambition, of no man or set of i. tn, 
whereby that Union shall be put in jeop>ardy , 

And on the 27th of June, 1849, when relinquishing the charge of 
that paper, he again said : 

" That U'hich is really and inost valuable in our American liberties, depends 
upon the preservation and vigor of the Union of these States; and there- 
fore, all and every agitation in one section, necessarily generating coiin- 
ter agitation in the other, ought, from what quarter soever it may come, by 
every patriot and ■well-wisher of his country, to be 'indignantly frowned 
upon,' and arrested ere it be ' too late.' " 

On the 26'.h of October, 1850, at a large Democratic meeting in 
Dayton, Mr. V. reported a series of resolutions concluding thus : 

"That 'all obstructions to the execution of the laws, all combinations 
and associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real de- 
sign to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and 
action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of the fundamental 
principle of our institutions and of fatal tendency; that all such efforts, 
wherever made or by whomsoever advised, find no answering sympathy 
in our breast — nothing but loathing and contempt — and that we hereby 
}iledge ourselves to the country, that, so far as in us lies, the Union, tue 
Constitution and the Laws, must and shall be maintained.' " 

In a speech delivered in the House of Representatives, Dec. 15, 
1859, Mr. VALLANDiGnAM said : 

" Is it not, I appeal to you, better then for you of the North, better for 
you of the South, better for us of the West, better for all of us, that this 
Union shall endure forever? Sir, I am for the Union as it is, and the 
Constitution as it is. I am against disunion now, and forever." 

In the same speech he also said : 

"Mr. Clerk, I am, not, perhaps, so hopeful of the final result as some 
other men; but I was taught in m}' boyhood that noblest of all Roman 
maxims — never to despair of the Republic. I was taught, too, by pious 
lips, a yet higher and holier doctrine still — a firm belief in a superintend- 
ing Providence, which governs in the affairs of men. I do believe that 
God, in his infinite goodness, has foreordained for this land a higher, 
mightier, nobler destiny than for any other country since the world began; 
Time's noblest empire is the last. From the Arctic ocean to the Isthmus of 
iJarien; from the Atlantic to the Alleghanies; stretching far and wide 
over the vast basin of the Mississippi, scaling the Rocky Mountains, and 
lost at last in the blue waters of the Pacific, I behold, in holy and patriotic 
vision, ONE Union, one Constitution, one Destiny. (Applause.) Rut 
this grand and magnificent destiny cannot be fulfilled by us, except as a 
united people." 

On the 20th of February, 1861, Mr. VALLANDicnAM said, in the 
House of llepresentatives : 

" Born, sir, upon the soil of the United States — attached to my country 
from earliest boyhood, loving and revering her with some part, at least, of 
the spirit of Greek and Roman patriotism — between these two alternatives, 



yilh all my mind, with all my heart, with all ray slrcripth of body and of 
soul, living or dyinpf, at home or in exile, I am for the Union which made 
it what it is; and, therefore, I am also for such terms of peace and adjust- 
ment as will maintain that Union now and forever." 

This declaration occurs in that famous speech in which Mr. V. is said 
to have proposed to divide the Union into ''four distinct nationalities.^^ 
Such is the assertion repeatedly and persistently made by the Abolition 
press. There could not be a more direct perversion of the plain and 
obvious meaning of language. It must be a bad cause that requires 
the aid of such means. Every one who has read the speech and the 
resolutions that accompany it, knows that the proposed division into 
''four sections'^ upon which so much stress has been laid by the Abo- 
lition papers and speakers, refers simply to a proposed cliange in the 
manner of taking the vote in the Senate ; this and nothing more. 
It did not in the sliglitest degree contemplate dissolving the Union. 
Its purpose was to preserve it. 

No one has more firmly and consistently opposed -every movement 
or sentiment looking to disunion. And he has firmly opposed every 
movement aiming at peace on the basis of separation. His resolu- 
tions, introduced into the House of Representatives on thelGth of De- 
cember, 18G2, exhibit correctly his views and the character of his eflTorts 
in relation to this matter. The first three are — 

'^Resolved, 1. That the Union as it was must be restored and main- 
tained forever, under the Constitution as it is — the fifth article, providing 
for amendments, included. 

"2. That no linal treaty of peace, ending the present civil war, can be 
permitted to be made by the Executive, or anj' other person in the civil or 
military service of the United States, on any other basis than the integ- 
rity and entiretj' of the Federal Union, and of the States composing the 
same as at the beginning of hostilities, and upon that basis peace ought 
immediately to be made. 

3. "That the Government can never permit armed or hostile interven- 
tion by any foreign power, in regard to the present civil war." 

The remaining three are in harmony with the above. 

In a speech at Hamilton, 0., September, 1862, accepting the nomi- 
nation for Congress, Mr. Vall.^ndigiiam said : 

" At your demand, therefore, men of the Third District, I accept the 
nomination, and present myself to the people for their sufi'rages, upon no 
other platform than the Constitutio.n as it is a.nd the Union as it w.vs." 

And such sentiments have characterized every speech, vote and act 
of his political life. 

At the first appearance of that deadly struggle which is still wearying 
the life and consuming the substance of the nation, Mr. Vallandiguam 
was among the most earnest and active in every honorable effort either 
to avert the coming storm or so to guide it that it might not lea^'e the 
wreck of the Union in its track. In nothing he has said or done, in 
Congress or out of Congress has he ever counseled or attempted the 
interposition of any unconstitutional or unlawful hindrance to the pro- 
secution of measures adopted by the Administration, but has uniformly 



"\ 



10 

counseled a full and implicit obedience to all laws when enacted. No 
man in the Union has stood more firmly against every sentiment that 
would encourage an uprising of the people in defiance of laws, even 
when unpopular and obnoxious. 

On the 12th of July, 18G1, he said in Congress : 

" For my own part, sir, while I would not in the beginning have 
given a dollar or a man to commence this war, I am willing — now that 
we are in the midst of it without any act of ours — to vote just as many 
men and just as much money as may be necessary to defend and protect 
the Federal Government. It would be both treason and madness now 
to disarm the Government, in the presence of an enemy of two hundred 
thousand men in the field against it." 

In his speech in Dayton, Aug. 2, 1862, he said, speaking on the 
subject of enlistments : 

" Whoever among the Abolitionists would curse secession, let him 
enlist, and then ne will show his faith by his works, and your armies 
will be full in a week. Let every man who would invite others to go, 
first go himself I have never interfered with enlistments. While the 
war lasts, our armies, for many reasons, must not be disbanded ; so I 
said in Congress more than a year ago. Without enlistments they can 
not be kept up ; and if any man, subject to military duty, really thinks 
that the Union can be restored by force and arms, and only in that way, 
let him enlist; it is his duty to enlist; he is 'disloyal' if he does not 
enlist. Whoever shall be drafted, should a draft be ordered according 
to Constitution and law, is in duty bound, no matter what he thinks of 
the war, to either go, or find a substitute, or pay the fine which the law 
imposes ; he has no right to resist, and none to run away." 

On the subject of supplies for the army, be said in his speech in 
Congress on the 14th of January last : 

" The country was at war, and I belonged to that school of politics 
which teaches that wben we are at war, the Government — I do not 
moan the Executive alone, but the Government is entitled to demand 
and have, without resistance, such number of men, such an amount 
of money, and supplies generally, as may he necessary for the war, 
until an appeal can be made to the peopled 

And again, in the same speech : 

" I could not, with my convictions, vote men and money for this 
war, and I would not, as a Representative, vote against them. I wanted 
th'' President sJioidd take, without opposition, all the men and money 
he ihould demand, and then to hold him to a strict accountability for 
the results. Not believing the soldiers responsible for the war, or its 
purposes, or consequences, I have never withheld my vote when their 
eeparate interests were concerned." 

Mr. Vallakdioiiam has uniformly done all in hia power to secure 
for the soldiers in the service of the Government, just and liberal pay- 



I 



11 

ment and bounties. In a letter to his constituents, under date of May 
I3th, 18G1, he said : 

" Waiving the question of the doubtful legality of the first proclama- 
tion of April 15th, calling out the militia fur "three months," under 
the act of 1795, I will yet vote to pay them, because they had no 
motive, but supposed duty and patriotism to move them : and, more- 
over, thoy will have rendered almost the entire service required of thorn 
before Congress shall meet." 

And he did thus vote. When on the 9th of July, 1861, the bill 
appropriating the sum of six millions for the payment of the three 
months volunteers was under consideration, Mr. Vallandigiiam not 
only supported it, but in reply to a remark of Mr. Stevens asking the 
House to give its unanimous consent to the passage of the bill, Mr. V. 
replied : " I presume there is no objection to the bill at all." 

In answer to a letter, dated Hamilton, 0., Oct. 6, 1862, Mr. Val- 
i.ANiDGiiAM said : 

" In reply to yours of yesterday, I have to say that I supported all 
the measures in the last Congress looking to the giving of invalid pen- 
sions to all soldiers ' wounded or incurring disability in the military 
service.' Upon a question like that, no just or humane man could hesi- 
tate for a moment. Every soldier who has performed service is entitled 
to the pay and bounty promised him by law, and all disabled in any 
way during service are entitled to pensions; and I have never, either^ 
directly by vote or indirectly by refusing to vote, withheld either, where 
the service had been rendered or the disability incurred ; nor would I 
do so." 

On the 2d of December, 1862, an effort was made in Congress to 
increase the pay of soldiers to fifteen dollars a month. Mr. Val- 
landigiiam took an active part in the movement, and proposed to 
" make the Jifteen doUaTS payable in gold.^' 

The above statements indicate clearly and correctly the position 
Mr. V. has occupied in relation to the support of the army. He 
has been at all times the firm friend and defender of the rights and 
interests of the soldiers, when drafted or enlisted into the service. He 
has always maintained that they were justly and fully entitled to every 
compensation promised by the government, and has on several occa- 
sions endeavored to secure an increase of that compensation^ Many of 
tlie soldiers know and appreciate the value of his services in tLei. be- 
half; and if they could all be permitted to know the full and true 
history of what he has done and endeavored to do for them, there is no 
one for whom they would cherish a stronger affection. As a general 
fact, the interested misrepresentations of enemies, war contractor.- ami 
abolition disunioni.sts, are the only reports in regard to Mr. Vam.a.n- 
DiGiiAM that have obtained a free circulation in the army. This cmnot 
coatinue much longer. A deep and stern sense of natural jastico 



12 

»uides the popular will, both in and out of the army, and Booncr or 
later forms the controlling sentiment. 

Not only has Mr. Vallandigiiam been charged with giving his 
•whole sympathies, and, as far as possible, his influence in aid of the 
rebellion, but he has even been accused of devising and favoring inva- 
sions of the Northern States. Great efforts have been made to fasten 
upon hira, both among soldiers and civilians, the odium and prejudice 
of this most damaging charge. As these reports, together with their 
])retended proofs, must have come to your notice, we^will allude to a 
few of the more serious. 

On the 31st of July last there appeared in one of the daily papers 
of this State a leading editorial under the heading " Vallandigham in 
1847 a?2rfl801." 

The article commenced with giving some account of Mr. V.'s course 
in regard to the war with Mexico, alleging that he had given that war 
his cordial sympathy and support, because it was waged in the interes-t 
of slavery, quoting also a resolution, in relation to the prosecution of 
the war, offered by him at a Democratic meeting held in Dayton, Dec. 
18th, 1847. The article then says : 

" The man whose voice was then all for war, is now attuned to peace 
on any terms. The man whose soul was then fired against poor, help- 
less Mexico, now gives all his cordial sympathies to the South. Tlie 
same man who in 1847 uttered the words of the foregoing resolution, 
in 1861 uttered these words : 

'' ' Then, m, I am not a Southern man either, although in this most unholy ami 
unconstitutional crusade against the South, in the midst of the ihvasion, arKOU. 
insurrection and murder to which she lias been subjt ct and with which she is 
still threatened — with the torch of the incendiary and the dagger of the assasbin 
suspended over her, my most cordial ."ympaihies are ivholly with her J " 

Of the above quotation, the article says : 

"Mr. Vallandigham uttered this in 18G1, and nobody doubted his 
sincerity. His whole course of conduct, public and private, authenti- 
cates the sincerity of his statement that bis most cordial sympathies are 
with her (the South)." 

Portions of the above words, said to have been uttered by Mr. V. 
in 1861, are again turned over, repeated and commented upony and the 
reader reminded that the incendiaries and the assassin are the Union, 
men. 

The item thus started has had a large run in the abolition papers. 
In several instances the quotation from Mr. Vallandigham has been 
accompanied with remarks reafiirming and repeating the assertion that 
the speech in which the passage occurs was made in 18G1, and refers 
to the present war. One remark, which has been moving around in 
connection with the passage and as a commentary on it, says : 

" Thus as early as 1861 did this detested traitor, Vallandigham, 
array himself against the Union cause, and commence anathematizing 



13 

the brave soldier boys. * * * If he thinks ho will secure a sup- 
port in the army, he is much mistaken. Soldiers will not vote for a 
man who brands them with such epithets as assassins, murderers and 
incendiaries." 

Now the truth is that the passage is taken from a speech delivered 
in Congress on the 15th of December, 1859, more tiiax a year be- 
fore THE WAR commenced. The allusion is to John Brown's raid into 
Virginia, the general subject before the House being the fitness of Hon. 
John Sherman for the Speakership, he having indorsed and recom- 
mended the Helper book, which was supposed to be a part of the 
secret history and hidden machinery of the said John Brown's raid. 
And yet strange to say those unscrupulous enemies and defaraers of 
Mr. Vallandioiiam, have manufactured that base slander and spread 
it everywhere, asserting that the speech was made in 18G1, and. in 
reference to the present war. 

On the 1-lth of February, 18G3, Mr. Yaixandioham delivered an ad- 
dress in Newark, N. J., in which some of the New York papers falsely 
charged him with saying, 

" It has been proclaimed that it never was the Confederates' inten- 
tion to invade the Northern States, yt if this war is kept up, battles 
fought, no relenting spirit, no prospect of peace, no sound of concord 
to re achour ears, they ought to be induced to make that invasion." 

Mr. V. immediately addressed a note to the Tribune, under date of 
New York, February 16th, correcting the erroneous report, saying, 

" What I said as to invasion from the South was, that ' if the war was 
kept up with no relenting spirit, and no prospect of peace, they might 
possibly attempt invasion of the North and West, and then we would 
write for them precisely the history they have been writing for us during 
the last two years.' " 

This agrees with the passage as given in a full report of the speech 
published in the Freemen's Journal of February 28th. And yet that 
false report has been kept moving, although, in addition to the cor- 
rection in the newspapers, Mr. V. explicitly and positively denounced 
it as false from his place in Congress, and repeated what he did say. 

This absurd report belongs to the same class with that stupid and ma- 
lignant falsehood in which Mr. V. was charged with having said, at an 
Ohio caucus in Washington, December, 1860, that "before Federal 
troops should be permitted to pass through the Miami Valley, they 
must march over his dead body ;" a charge which has been thoroughly 
exploded and exposed on Republican authority. 

In a speech, accepting the nomination for Congress, September 4th, 
1802, Mr. Vallandioiiam offered the following, which was adopted by 
the meeting unanimously, amid great cheering : 

" Resolved. That it is the highest duty of the citizen, whenever his countrj or 
State is invaded, to rush to its rescue, by arms, if he is capable of military 
service, and by money or otherwise every way, if he i.s not ; and that the 0**- 
mocracy, as a part of the people of this district, laying aside all party feeline; 
for that purpose, are ready with life and fortune to do their part iu discharginij 
this patriotic duty." 



14 

Such have been Mr. V.'s sentiments at all times In relation to any '^ 
possible or proposed invasion of the Northern States by the rebel armies. 
No shadow of a thought written or uttered by him in Congress or out 
of Congress ever has been or can b3 produced whic^ , even by implica- 
tion, looks like inviting or favoring an invasion of the Northern States. 
A charge of this sort would be too absurd for denial, were it not that 
it has been and still is repeatedly and persistently made with a bold 
and reckless tenacity of falsehood. Either the men who make this 
assertion believe that a lie well stuck to finally becomes a truth, or else, 
which is more likely, they hope to make a large number of people 
believe those base and damaging charges. 

We have thus. Soldiers of Ohio, placed before you a few fac's and 
statements showing the high, honorable and statesmanlike course pur- 
sued from the beginning and at all times by the man whom the Demo- 
cracy of your State have placed in nomination for Governor, and wh.m 
the people, with an almost unanimous sentiment, with an enthusiasm 
uncqualed, have determined to elect to that office. No election ever 
held in this country has been regarded with deeper interest ; none has 
involved more momentous issues. Never have the hearts of the people, 
of all ages and classes, been more deeply moved. 

In the election or defeat of Mr. Vallandigiiam a great principle is 
at stake, aside from the question of his fitness for that important office. 
The course the administration has pursued in his case and the position 
it still occupies are in direct conflict with the theory and practice of 
this government, as understood and applied by the Democratic 
party. 

Our views on this question were thus expressed, in our State Con- 
vention on the 11th of June last, when we said : 

" Resolved, That the arrest, imprisonment, pretended trial, and actual banish- 
ment of Clement L. Vallandigham, a citizen of the State of Ohio, not belonging 
to the land or naval forces of the United States, nor to the militia in actual 
pervicc, by alleged military authority, for no other pretended crime than that 
of uttering words of legitimate criticism upon the conduct of the Administra- 
tion in power, and of appealing to the l)allot-box Ibr a change of policy — (tjaid 
arrest and military trial taking place where the courts of law are open and un- 
obstructed, and for no act done within the sphere of active military operations 
in carrying on the war) — we regard as a palpable violation of the following 
provisions of the Constitution of the United States : 

'■ '1. Confcrcss fhall make no law * » * abriiiging the freedom of Bpceoh or of the prfSR, 
or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition (he Goveruuiont for a redress of 
grievances. 

'• • 2. The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against 
unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated ; and no warrants shall issue, but upon 
probable cause, supported by oath or afflrmation, and particularly describing the place to be 
searched and the persons or things t'> be seized. 

•' '3. No person shall be beld to answer for a capital or otherwise infamous crime, unless on 
presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forcts. 
or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public d.mger. 

'• ' 4. In all criminal prosecutions, the aicused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public 
trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been comaiitt«.>d. 
which district shall have been previously ascertained by law.' 

" And we furthermore denounce said arrest, trial and banishment, as a direct 
insult offcred to the sovereignty of tiie people of Ohio, by whose organic law it 
is declared, that ' no person Khali be transported out of the State for any oSlenHw 
committed within the same.' " .,..^„^^^ 

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